Age of the Geek

Travis' end of season recap

     Well, the 2013-14 television season is just about done wrapping up. That means it's time to go over the hits and misses from this year's new offerings.

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

     Nobody was more excited about this television take on the Marvel Cinematic Universe than I was. But I have to admit, "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." did not have the best of starts. The show struggled to find a balance between the espionage nature of its source material, the super hero fantasy of its movie counterparts, and the family friendliness of ABC.

     However, just when all hope seemed lost, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" happened and we discovered that the show was just biding its time for the movie tie-in episode that let them end on a high note.

     I won't say it's a great show yet, but I have a lot more hope for it now than I did earlier.

• Almost Human

     Remember a decade ago when Fox took a promising sci-fi show, aired the episodes out of order, and then canceled it before it could resolve any of the plotlines it had established? You'd think I'd learn my lesson, but no, I let myself get attached to "Almost Human" and Fox did the same thing to it that it did to "Firefly."

     Everybody on that show deserved better than what they got and Fox needs to stop playing with my emotions. "MasterChef Junior" has already been given a third season and this gets canceled? It's a crime.

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine

     "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" has the rare distinction of being a sitcom that still managed to grab my attention. I don't watch a lot of half-hour comedies, but SNL's Andy Samberg and the rest of the ensemble cast has put together the funniest show I've seen in a long time. Every character has their own hilarious flaws and plays them perfectly.

• Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

     Taking up the reigns of Carl Sagan's 1980 show, Neil deGrasse Tyson brings science to primetime. A bold move for an age where people seem all too willing to revel in their own ignorance.

     This is a great show not only for its science, but its history as well. After the first episode I was afraid the series would be nothing but recaps of all the things we learned in middle school, but it goes significantly deeper than the stories of Newton and Galileo. For the first time in a long time, I was excited about what I will learn next.

• Dracula

     As big a fan of Dracula as I am, I admit I barely made it through the first episode before writing off this disaster. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't Dracula sporting a bad southern accent while astounding Victorian London with the marvels of electricity.

     You had one shot, NBC, and you blew it. This abomination is going back into the grave and it'll be years before another Dracula show rises up again.

• Once Upon A Time In Wonderland

     This spin-off from "Once Upon A Time" was actually intended to be a mid-season fill-in while its parent show was on hiatus. The show instead got promoted to a full 13-episode season and a timeslot of its very own.

     It was a decent show, but one season of Wonderland is all we will be getting. At least this one was given a chance to wrap everything up.

• The Originals

     I didn't have much in the way of expectations when it came to this spin-off of "The Vampire Diaries," but by the end of its first season it had won me over with its supernatural politics and constantly shifting relationships between characters.

     Plus, watching Joseph Morgan dance between good and evil as Niklaus rarely gets old. Not many can project such deathly threatening anger like he can, a rare trait in a protagonist.

• Sleepy Hollow

     "Sleepy Hollow" managed to win me over in spite of its infuriating ignorance about the difference between a sheriff's department and a police department. Riding almost entirely on the charm of Tom Mison playing the man-out-of-time, Ichabod Crane, "Sleepy Hollow" managed to keep me interested long enough to build a fairly compelling alternate American History where George Washington wasn't just the leader of the Revolution, but a commander in the war between good and evil. Good stuff.

     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing.